Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 3
1st Report - Meeting housing demand
Published 10 Jan 2022
Paragraph 35
Built Environment Committee Meeting the UK’s housing demand All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
We welcome the Government’s target to deliver 300,000 homes per year and one million homes by 2025 to address the long-term undersupply of new housing. However, even with increased development through SMEs, ‘build to rent’, self-commissioned homes and local authorities, building will likely still fall short of the target. Without reducing the barriers to meeting housing demand—including skills shortages, lack of available land, resources for local planning authorities, the reduced role of SME housebuilders, inadequate support for social housing provision, and the barriers and delays in the planning system—it will not be possible to get close to this target.
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Meeting housing demand, paragraph 35, 10 January 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 28 March 2022 (deadline 10 March 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the Committee's report and says it is "taking action on a number of the issues identified", agreeing with some recommendations while disagreeing with others, including on home ownership schemes and the Apprenticeship Levy.
- It "disagrees with the report's assessment that homeownership schemes do not provide good value for money", citing independent evaluations and its own evaluation of Help to Buy.
- On older people's housing, it is launching a new taskforce "this year", chaired by the Minister for Housing, to look at better choice, quality and security of housing.
- It does "not intend to set out a proportion" of Affordable Homes Programme funding for social housing, though "around half" of the affordable homes are to be for social and affordable rent.
- On the Apprenticeship Levy it says it has "no plans to review" it. On planning fees it is "exploring options" to increase them, and on local plans it will make an announcement "in due course".